“[Momaday] must be ranked among the greatest of our contemporary writers.”—American Scholar
"Momaday’s poems are rich with description, lush with dreaming, and filled with magic." — Library Journal (starred review)
From Pulitzer Prize winner and revered literary master N. Scott Momaday, a beautiful and enchanting new poetry collection, at once a celebration of language, imagination, and the human spirit.
“Language and the imagination work hand in hand, and together they enable us to reveal us to ourselves in story. That is indeed a magical process. . . . We imagine and we dream, and we translate our dreams into language.” —from the Preface
A singular voice in American letters, Momaday’s love of language and storytelling are on full display in this brilliant new collection comprising one hundred sketches or “dream drawings”—furnishings of the mind—as he calls them. Influenced by his Native American heritage and its oral storytelling traditions, here are prose poems about nature, animals, warriors, and hunters, as well as meditations that explore themes of love, loss, time, and memory. Each piece, full of wisdom and wonder, showcases Momaday’s extraordinary lyrical talent, the breadth of his imagination, and the transformative power of his writing. Dream Drawings is also illustrated with a selection of black-and-white paintings by Momaday that capture the spirit of his prose.
Poignant, inspired, and timeless, this is a collection that will nourish the soul.
This celebrated collection, an enactment of the creative process itself, is built from:
- Meditations on Time and Memory: Profound reflections on love, loss, and the spiritual gravity of place, capturing moments that merge the past with the present.
- Kiowa Oral Storytelling: Stories of warriors, hunters, and shape-shifters, born from the author’s deep connection to his heritage and its rich narrative traditions.
- Lyrical Dream Drawings: One hundred jewel-like sketches that translate dreams into language, blurring the line between poetry and prose, the seen and the unseen.
- Author’s Original Artwork: Illustrated with a selection of Momaday’s own black-and-white paintings that capture the enchanting, timeless spirit of his words.
"In many ways, to read Momaday is to read the land. It is to encounter the earth alive with wind and sunlight, with plants and animals, and to know all of it—each aspect of the world—by name. It is also to renew a reverence for beauty and a feeling of hope."
